


Burial

by HK44



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Drabble, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 13:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17468441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: Her eyes snapped to him. “I want freedom.”“The Underworld is not freedom,” he said, easy. “Only to its king.”





	Burial

Persephone watched the flowers and vines thread around his neck like a tie. Or a noose. His eyes flooded black over her frame but he didn’t move. She tugged. He refused to follow.

Her stance deepened, hardened. Headstrong like her father, determined like her mother, she yanked him hard and snarled low between her teeth when he didn’t budge a muscle. 

“They used to use me as a shield,” Hades began slowly, his eyes fluttering slow closed. He titled his head back, as though trying to catch the rain that hit the edge of the boundaries that held her in and did not drip in any further. The petals around his throat began to decay and fade away. “Because I could not be shifted. And I could not be harmed.” He raised one hand. “What makes you think you can?”

“Because I  _never_  give up,” she snapped. “And I  _will_  get what I want.”

Shadows licked her legs. “And what do you want?”

She looked at the edge of the trees, expanding far beyond her reach. Before them shimmered the border lines that held her in. She thought of the rain that fell that she’d never felt. The house that she curled herself inside of, crying, sobbing, waiting. Waiting for the doors to be opened and her mother to let her go.

Her eyes snapped to him. “I want freedom.”

“The Underworld is not freedom,” he said, easy. “Only to its king.”

A thrill shivered down her spine. His eyes matched hers, a challenge. A proposal. In her dreams, she’d thought it differently. Someone else. Warmer. Kinder. Softer. A savior who’d fought for her. Not someone she’d forcefully dragged from the depths of the dirt and rock below her feet, not someone she’d tried to trap there with her until he took her with him and let her  _out_.

“Then I will be your queen,” she said, stepping back. “And you will keep me free.”

“As you wish, my wife,” he said, eyes dark and unchanged.

He stepped towards her fast. Shadows bloomed where he stepped, swirling, encompassing and the ground trembled with every stepped. He captured her hand in his, fingers intertwined, and without warning, she was in the air, hefted high into his arms.

Shadowed horses bled from the darkness. Trailing behind them clattered and clanked a chariot made of skeletal remains. She heard the screams of the souls ever trapped within. He carried her in and kept her tight in lap.

“Hold on.” His voice was softer than it had ever been and she trembled. She glanced up to him and he was smiling. “It will be cold for a spell. But you will breathe again.”

“Of course, I will,” she snapped, refusing to betray her fear to him. “I am the Queen of the Underworld. I do not die.”

“Brave words,” he mused, “for someone about to be buried.”

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhh, i love when I write them. Normally, I do Persephone being forceful and terrifying in her own right but this was a nice change. What do you think?
> 
> [Check Out My Book!](https://books2read.com/TheVeryTrueTaleOfAlexJohnson) | [Tumblr](http://happyk44.tumblr.com/post/182127638127/persephone-watched-the-flowers-and-vines-thread) | [Other Links](https://linktr.ee/hk44_art)


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